Animals
and Nature: Cultural Myths, Cultural Realities
by Rod Preece, 1999, UBC Press.
"Be careful lest, in casting out your devils, you cast
out the best that is within you."
Nietzsche
For those with open critical minds, who are willing to painfully think deeper,
Animals and Nature:
Cultural Myths, Cultural Realities,
is a book to shake you up, because it has something new to say. It can
expand how humans look at our relationship
to animals and nature in a more open-minded way, particularly
from the perspective of "Western"
culture. The author wants to improve how we interact with flora and fauna
and rediscover the "best" of our
own Western traditions, to help us find our way forward.
If you are blindly committed
to the view that Western thought or its intellectual tradition is totally
bound to a
"domination of nature" thesis, then
this book is not for you. This is not by contemporary standards a politically
correct book. But I believe it is
an important book. However, it is a complicated book to read because of
the
encyclopaedic
task the author, Rod Preece, sets out for himself.
It is a book that can make oneself feel ignorant,
because of its sweep and informed
historical commentary on philosophy, literature, religious traditions, and
cultures.
There is a discussion of
"Oriental thought", that is, Buddhism, Taoism and Hinduism. I found the analysis of the
Jains,
e.g. ahimsa, as an exception to the "quietist tradition" of non-intervention
or disengagement in the natural
world very interesting. Jainism,
and its application to non-humans, has influenced the adoption of vegetarianism
and
elimination of animal sacrifices
in
and all of nature, to be found in
Jain, Buddhist, Hindu, Taoist and aboriginal thought, has a western counterpart.
But, Preece
says that there is a "general trend throughout
(p. 207)
Here in
whether this religion is an obstacle
to environmental engagement in fighting the Earth destroyers. The point is
made
in this book that how we evaluate
the animal pantheon, reflects values admired within human society.
Basically what this book is about, is the documentation and presentation of the dynamite thesis that the West,
"has been significantly more sympathetic to the natural
realm than it has been given credit for.
By contrast, the customary depiction of Oriental and Aboriginal concerns
for the natural realm,
it is argued, has been greatly overdrawn." Preface xii
Preece,
who teaches political science at Wilfred Laurier University in Ontario,
Canada, in a letter of September
3, 1999, responding to a note I
had sent him after reading this book, said his "primary concern,
in dealing with
the west, was to demonstrate that
there has been a traditional ongoing respect for animals and nature
prior to the western ecological
revolution."
The author is a Green and
no Western civilization apologist. The core thinking of this book is going
to help
change in a major way, for example,
the aboriginal/non-aboriginal discussion in
(see Green Web bulletins #67A and
#67B, "Unfashionable Ideas: A Left Biocentric Critique of the
Report of the Royal Commission on
Aboriginal Peoples"), that there is substantial intellectual disarray
among non-aboriginals concerning
aboriginal issues. One factor in this is a genuine sense of historical guilt
because
of the past racist and unjust past
treatment of aboriginals. (This statement should not be misread to imply
that
racism is no longer present in contemporary
society, although I believe the situation is qualitatively different today
because racist practices against
aboriginals are not sanctioned either by the state or by the majority of
Canadians.)
However, this very consciousness
of historical guilt seems to inhibit contemporary critical discourse. This
book is
going to increase critical discourse.
It is going to make it possible, within the environmental movement, to oppose
those "aboriginal advocates" who
seem quite prepared to promote social justice at the expense of wildlife
and the
ecology, by tapping into historical
guilt and fostering a bias against looking critically at aboriginal societies
in the
past or present.
The book will also provide
the general documentation to substantiate what has become obvious to me,
as a
result of reading the Royal Commission
of Aboriginal Peoples. That is, that the commissioners in their five-volume
1996 report, had no understanding
of the evolution of consciousness in non-aboriginal society in Canada, which
opposes treating wild animals as
"resources" and commodities to be sold in the marketplace, and what this
means
for a deeper land ethic. (Interestingly,
the commissioners in their report, do not mention or discuss the deep
ecology movement.)
Preece
stresses the necessity of looking at aboriginal practices, not the ideals
which are presented for public
consumption. A language of harmony
with nature conceals for the author, "relatively little consideration for
animal
suffering." (p. 193) Animals are seen instrumentally for aboriginals, and
the author, as this reviewer, does not accept
that "traditional rights" can justify
the use of snowmobiles to hunt wolves, continuing support for the leghold trap
and the fur industry, use of gillnets,
etc. "Rituals" invoked in the killing of animals are seen as cultural "atonement"
by aboriginals. The author says,
"Tribal societies customarily controlled nature as much
as they were able, and often to nature's
lasting detriment. Humans are far more similar to each other than those who
glorify Aboriginal
environmentalism would have us believe." p. 177
Another interesting observation
made by Preece, is that each "tribe", or in
a Canadian context, aboriginal nation,
sees itself as a chosen people,
with their own creation myth. This conflicts with the universalism of the
ecological
ethic and helps in understanding
the extreme bitterness of views around an issue like the Makah grey whale killing.
"Every tribe sees itself as the chosen people, whose responsibility
it is to look after itself. This view
is the antithesis of egalitarianism and universalism. For the Aboriginal,
the permanent interests of
the tribe are sacred." pp. 183-184.
And Preece re-evaluates the Western intellectual tradition:
"The Western tradition, so readily castigated by its opponents,
has not been so uncaring as its
depiction by detractors would have us believe...It should not escape our
attention that, in the
nineteenth century, a vegetarian movement, anti-vivisection movement, naturalist
movement,
and animal welfare movement, and, in the twentieth century, an environmental
movement and
animal rights movement all began, and in most cases have found the greatest
response, in Western
society. Indeed, Western society's greatest critics are themselves Westerners,
and are products of
a civilization that has promoted and encouraged intellectual dissent to a
far greater degree than
any previous society. The fact that Western civilization has treated the
criticisms as legitimate has
given greater weight to those criticisms than would have been the case in
any other contemporary
society. The West has certainly not been immersed in the realm of nature;
but at least it has been
ambivalent." p. 7
Like deep ecologists and
left biocentrists, Rod Preece
in his book Animals and Nature, sees the necessity
for a spiritual transformation.
The following quotation reveals a deep ecology understanding, particularly
the
concept of Self-realization, even
though deep ecology, unfortunately, is not discussed in this book:
"All cultures think of their own interests first and only
a spiritual education dedicated to a sharing of
identities with other peoples, other animals, and nature as a whole can diminish
the environmental
destruction we face. It can be diminished by our being educated to share
our identity with the natural
world and thus understand it as a part of ourselves." p. 230
Conclusion
This book has helped me further along a path I was already on. I expect
the book to be attacked as an apology
for the Western intellectual tradition
but it is not. I feel that intellectuals who feel the guilt of Western imperialism,
can refuse to consider some of the
positive features of this society, necessary to grasp, as we work to build
an
alternative relationship to the
natural world rather than the destructive "resourcism"
of industrial capitalism. The
Nietzsche quote, which was in the
book, addresses this. I believe like Preece,
that our guilt over the legacy and
ongoing destructiveness of industrial
capitalism has lead to a romantization of aboriginal
societies as ecological and
social models and an undue reverence
for Eastern philosophies. Of course we must learn from everyone, but new
thinking and models are necessary.
Like the author, I believe that similarities among differing cultures in
their
attitudes towards nature and wildlife
are more striking than the differences. But for all of us, big changes are
necessary if there is to be a turn-around.
I found the book too drawn out, but given the task set by the author, perhaps
there is no way around this. I think
it is a shame that deep ecology
was not part of the analysis, because this is part of the way forward.
Published in the Journal of International
Wildlife Law & Policy, vol. 2:3 (1999).
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